Eugen Joseph Weber (April 24, 1925, Bucharest, Romania – May 17, 2007, Brentwood, Los Angeles, California) was a Romanian-born American historian with a special focus on Western Civilization and the Western Tradition.
Weber became a historian because of his interest in politics, an interest dating back to at least the age of 12. He described his political awakening as a realization of social injustices: "It was my vague dissatisfaction with social hierarchy, the subjection of servants and peasants, the diffuse violence of everyday life in relatively peaceful country amongst apparently gentle folk".
Weber's books and articles have been translated into more than half a dozen languages. He earned many accolades for his scholarship, including membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies and the Fulbright Program. His 1,300-page "A Modern History of Europe: Men, Cultures, and Societies from the Renaissance to the Present (1971)" was described "a phenomenal job of synthesis and interpretation that reflects Eugen's wide and deep learning," by his colleague, the late Hans Rogger. In addition to his distinguished American Awards and honors, he was awarded the Ordre National des Palmes Académiques in 1977 for his contribution to French culture. The Ordre National des Palmes Academiques was originally founded by Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte as the highest decoration to for French scholars.
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He was born the son of Sonia and Emmanuel Weber, a well-to-do industrialist. At the age of ten (10) his parents hired a private tutor. But the tutor did not stay long. From this age of 10 Weber was already reading The Three Musketeers by Alexander Dumas, adventure novels by Karl Frederich May, poetry by Victor Hugo and Homer. He was also reading George Sand, Jules Verne and "every cheap paperback I could afford". At age 12, he was sent to boarding school in Herne Bay, in southeastern England, and later to Ashville College, Harrogate.[1]
During World War II, he served with the British Army in Belgium, Germany and India between 1943 and 1947 rising to the rank of captain. Afterward, Weber studied history at the Sorbonne and Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po) in Paris.[1]
He graduated with a BA in 1950 and an MA from Cambridge in 1954. In 1950, he married Jacqueline Brument-Roth. He then taught at Emmanuel College, Cambridge (1953–1954) and the University of Alberta (1954–1955) before settling in the United States, where he taught first at the University of Iowa (1955–1956) and then, until 1993 on his retirement, at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).[2]
At Cambridge University Eugen Weber studied with the historian David Thomson. He studied for his PhD but the dissertation was refused because the outside examiner, Alfred Cobban, of the University of London, gave a negative review of his dissertation, saying it lacked sufficient archival sources.
Eugen Weber's wrote a column, opinion pieces, and book reviews for the Los Angeles Times under the column title LA Confidential. He also wrote for several French popular newspapers and, in 1989, presented an American television series, "The Western Tradition", which consisted of fifty two lectures of 30 minutes each.
Weber took a pragmatic approach to history. He once observed: Nothing is more concrete than history, nothing less interested in theories or in abstract ideas. The great historians have fewer ideas about history than amateurs do; they merely have a way of ordering their facts to tell their story. It isn’t theories they look for, but information, documents, and ideas about how to find and handle them.
Weber is associated with several important academic arguments. His book: Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France 1870-1914, for instance, is a classic presentation of modernization theory. Although other historians such as Henri Mendras had put forward similar theories about the modernization of the French countryside, Weber's book was the first to situate the changes in the period between 1870 and 1914. Weber emphasizes that well into the 19th century few French citizens regularly spoke French. Instead, many of the inhabitants of France spoke regional languages or dialects such as Breton, Gascon, Basque, Catalan, Flemish, Alsatian, and Corsican. Even in French-speaking areas provincial loyalties often transcended the putative bond of the nation. Between 1870 and 1914, Weber argued, a number of new forces penetrated the previously isolated countryside. These included the judicial and school systems, the army, the Catholic Church, railways, roads, and a market economy. The result was the wholesale transformation of the population from "peasants," basically ignorant of the wider nation, to Frenchmen.
In his book, Apocalypses: Prophecies, Cults, and Millennial Beliefs through the Ages., Weber deals with the study of the Apocalypse or revelation of God in the Bible and turns the modern time we are living on its head. He provides a critical review of the modern times which he calls "worldly times", the time and considers the modern times characterized by majority of people's influences by evil spirits and Satan. He writes: "In the first there was nothing, but God was: There was God who said I AM the first and I AM the last, and beside me there is no other God.God created the world, and men and women in it. What God did was good, but it became bad - men and women too [became bad].Led by Satan, evil spirits opposed God and ruled the world of men.Darkness made war on light.Evil outbid and outdid good.One day soon God would put an end to the world. His kingdom would appear throughout all creation, Satan would be no more, nor would evil and sorrow subsist"[Pages 223-224].
Weber also reflects on the manner in which the teaching of the Bible are being "recast" by modern worldly Christian churches. He discusses the modern day secularism of organized Christian churches who interpret and subtly twist the Bible to suit modern tastes "worldly times". Wordly times are characterized by the rejection by modern people of the teachings of the Holy Bible and people's acceptance, embrace and reliance on science, technology and education. These, Weber argues, gives birth to "worldly times" of materialism, pursuits and indulgence in outward vain pleasures and people inflamed by all kinds of ideas to pursuit fun. These things leaves one in dark sadness, constant depression and agony of life. The pledge which Weber makes to his reader is to get out of modern living ("worldly times"), come out of organised churches, turn down priests and pastors, walk out and study the Bible alone fellowshipping with God. The only true enjoyment is the peace of inner life in constant communication with God. Weber first proclaimed this substantive statement in his publicly televised Western Tradition Lecture Series, he states:
"...in any case here we are at the end of the 20th century with a lot of people lonely in a Godless world - and now they are denied not only God but the solid substance of judgement and perception". "The world has always been disgracefully managed but now you no longer know to whom to complain"
Eugen Weber after he traversed the whole spectrum of western thought, western tradition and western civilization and progress in this publicly televised Western Tradition Lectures series of 52 episodes each running 30 minutes concludes by pointing at some of the profound ancient lessons from the Bible and laments the fact that many people today do not read the Bible. “There are not that many people who read the Bible these days which is the epitome of wisdom, violence, high aspiration and the hurtful achievements of mankind"
He makes his final remarks in the Western Tradition Lecture Series by quoting from Ecclesiastes in the Bible: For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. Vanity of vanities all is vanity." Weber was however an agnostic and viewed the Bible as an important piece of historical literature. He concluded his final lecture in this series by praising Western man as Promethean and then with Wordsworth's poetic phrase that, despite everything, "we are greater than we know."
A biography, Eugen Weber The Greatest Historian of our Times: Lessons of Greatness to the Future presents Weber's life and works in wholly positive terms.